Over the Years
by JoeMerl
Summary: Set from shortly after "Tak the Hideous New Girl" until Dib and Gretchen's adulthood, a set of five inter-related D/G fics dealing with everything from trips to the mall to flights into outer space. COMPLETE.
1. Never Again

"Hey, did you hear about that Tak girl?"

"What?!"

Gretchen had been gazing across the lunchroom absentmindedly, her eyes (as usual) falling onto one particular dark head sitting several tables away. But Melvin's sudden mention of that name---the name of the very girl she was thinking about---had startled her from her dreary thoughts.

Melvin took a bite of his sandwich; he chewed for a moment before continuing.

"Yeah. Notice how she wasn't in class today? It was on the news last night. Apparently she's gone missing."

"Missing?"

He nodded, taking another bite of his sandwich. "Yeah. Her dad was on the news, freaking out. There was also something about a weinie stand and a volcano...not exactly sure how that's related."

He trailed off. Gretchen paused for a moment, then turned back to where she had been staring, at that boy two tables down who was stabbing at his peas with a thoughtful look on his face.

Of course, hearing that a kid had suddenly disappeared---especially a girl she knew, if not anything like a friend---made her feel bad: a little scared, and worried about where she had gone and if she was okay. Just as if it had been any other girl who had vanished, some girl she didn't know.

But unlike in the case of some anonymous person, Gretchen had to admit that there was also a small, evil little part of her in the back of her mind that was celebrating, and hoping that that Tak girl disappeared forever and never, ever came back.

_That's not really fair,_ she mentally scolded. _You hardly even knew her. You shouldn't be wishing bad things to happen to her, even if..._

She watched the boy across the lunchroom eating again. And thought to about a week before, when she had seen that same boy sitting outside with Tak, offering her a bite of a Valentine's steak that _she,_ Gretchen, had given him.

Evil Gretchen won out again. _Oh I hope that Tak girl never_ ever_ comes back._

Gretchen shook her head and went back to her food, glancing nervously at the clock. Lunch was almost over, and Ms. Bitters would be upset if she was late. She quickly ate most of her meatloaf and about half of her peas, downed the last of her Poop Cola, and then rose with her tray to dump it in the trash.

Just as she reached it, though, she suddenly felt something hit her hard from behind.

"_Agh!_" Gretchen called.

"_Agh!_" called the person slamming into her.

Gretchen landed on the hard, cold cafeteria floor, right on top of her tray, feeling the wet, disgusting juices from her leftovers bleed through her skirt. Dib landed on top of her, head hitting her shoulder, the corner of his hair scythe pricking the back of her neck.

"_MWA-HA-HA_! Victory is mine!" a familiar voice screeched. Gretchen looked up just in time to see the back of a green head disappearing through the cafeteria doors, its own cackling in victory with his gloved fists raised in the air.

"_Ugh..._stupid Zim," Dib muttered, standing up and brushing off his trench coat; for a moment he didn't even seem to realize he had crashed into anyone, until he wiped some milk off of his glasses and seemed to notice Gretchen for the first time. He scratched the back of his neck with one hand and helped her up with the other. "Uh---sorry 'bout that," he muttered sheepishly.

"Oh...no problem," Gretchen said, feeling her face burn slightly. He released her hand. She slowly withdrew it.

Dib turned away, staring off at the door. "Stupid Zim."

"Yeah." She paused, following his gaze. "He seems in an awfully good mood, considering."

"Hmm?" Dib's brow wrinkled, eyebrow raised. "What do you mean?" His tone was suspicious, tense; it was the tone of voice he used whenever he began to form a new crazy theory, which these days Zim was increasingly at the center of.

"Oh---I just meant...with Tak disappearing---"

She broke off, startled; _Don't bring her up to _Dib! she screamed in her head. She blushed again. "I just mean---you know, they were dating, weren't they?"

"What? Oh...yeah," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "I...don't think they were actually as close as they seemed, though."

Gretchen was startled by the sudden harshness of his voice. She blinked. "Oh." She paused. "...You don't seem very upset."

"Huh?"

He looked up, eyebrow raised again. "Well---I just meant---weren't you two kind of...I mean, I just thought you two kind of..._liked_ each other. Or something," Gretchen stammered, trying to look insouciant.

Dib raised an eyebrow. "...'Liked' as in how?" It was his suspicious voice again; Gretchen wondered for a moment if he he really _didn't_ get what she was trying to say.

"Well..." (Gretchen was starting to wish she hadn't brought up this conversation in the first place) "I just mean---she didn't seem to really like Zim that much, and you and her...seemed close," she finished lamely.

Dib scoffed, loudly; Gretchen jumped slightly. "Yeah, we were _really_ close," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "As close as a hideous maniacal monster and a normal person can _be!_"

"Huh?!"

Dib simply shrugged; he did that a lot, Gretchen had noticed, shift moods suddenly, screaming like a maniac one minute and acting calm and cool a moment later. It was part of what made him interesting. "Tak was a jerk," he said simply. "Personally, I hope I never see her again." A slight smile crossed his lips. "Not that her little visit was a _total_ loss," he muttered, in a tone so soft Gretchen wondered if she were supposed to hear it at all.

He deposited what was left on his tray into the trash, apparently oblivious to Gretchen's tidal wave of emotions. "Anyway...see ya, Gretch."

"Bye," she said in a small voice. Dib turned and marched back across the cafeteria.

_Personally, I hope I never see her again._

Gretchen dumped her food into the trash can and practically floated back to her seat, her large mouth curled into a faint smile.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Part 1 of 5, published in honor of Valentine's Day (since I published a Dib/Gretch story last year too). I make no promises to have Part 2 out _anytime_ soon, I'm way too busy. But I'll do my best.

Sort of generic but I hope you enjoyed, please review! :-)


	2. Believe

**Author's Notes:** My "on while looking after little brothers" computer is busted, which gives me fewer distractions from writing. Hence, a long-overdue update of this fic. Enjoy!

* * *

"Ooh, look, a pet store!" Gretchen said, approaching the window and pressing her face against the glass. "Dib, isn't that kitten precious?"

"It _is_ pretty cute," he admitted, smiling over her shoulder as the cat turned its head and stared at Gretchen.

She giggled. "She sort of reminds me of my little Buttercup when she was a kitty. She used to do something sort of like that."

"Really? Wh—" He paused in mid-sentence as his eye caught something over in the mall's food court. "Wait—was that—"

"What is it, Dib?" Gretchen asked, not looking at him as she tapped on the glass, the cat still eying her curiously.

"I'm not sure...just a second, Gretchen, I'll be right back. Thought I saw something..."

If Gretchen were a bit quicker, she would have quickly realized that Dib suddenly leaving after such a vague proclamation was almost certainly going to end badly for everyone involved. As it was, she was too distracted by the kitten's enthralling cuteness to make more than a small mental note of what was happening around her.

It was about a minute and a half later that she looked up, frowning as she searched the area for Dib. And then she saw the crowd gathering in the food court.

And_ now_ the realization hit her.

She fought her way through the mass of bodies, already hearing the expected screams.

"BEGONE with you, big-headed worm-monkey!"

"Not until I find out what you're up to, _Zim!_"

"_NevEEERRR!_"

Gretchen managed to jostle her way to the front and saw—along with dozens of other shoppers—as the two foes screamed at each other, standing barely an inch apart with hands balled into fists at their sides. They whole scene looked pretty ridiculous—while Dib had shot up by more than six inches over the past few years, Zim was still as short as he had been in elamentry skool (a side-effect of his skin condition, he would always quickly explain), and for some reason he was dressed as an old man in a long coat, a fake beard not quite covering his distinctive green face. He was holding a leash attached to a lime green dog, which was drinking a Suck Monkey and holding a balloon in the shape of a squeaking airplane.

Gretchen looked around the food court; more and more people were gathering around to watch the fight, and she knew that soon somebody was bound to call security (this tended to happen a _lot_ whenever Dib and Zim were in the same room). She stepped forward and tugged on Dib's sleeve, though his eyes stayed glued to the green boy in front of him.

"Dib? Um, maybe we should go..."

"Yeah, that's right, _Dib!_ Listen to your smelly girlfriend!"

"_She's not my girlfriend!_ ...And she doesn't smell!"

"Does too!"

"Does not!"

"Does too!"

"Does n—_OW!_"

He was suddenly cut off as Zim kicked him in the shin. Dib let out a cry and hopped up on one leg, the crowd laughing as Zim ran off, dragging his dog behind him.

"_VICTORY FOR ZIIIIIM!_"

"Why you little—!"

"Dib, come _on,_ please?" Gretchen could tell that he was planning to run after Zim, so she grabbed his arm, pulling him away as the crowd began to disperse.

"But—he—"

Dib sputtered objections but allowed Gretchen to lead him away.

After several minutes, when she was at least _fairly_ sure he wouldn't try to escape, Gretchen let go of Dib's arm; he responded by shoving his fists into his pockets, looking sullen.

"He's up to something," he grumbled, looking back over his shoulder as he walked. "But what?"

Gretchen looked around nervously. "Um—look! A sale on trench coats!" she said, hoping to distract him.

Dib glared. "Gretchen, this is serious! If Zim's here, then he's probably planning to—to—release radioactive chipmunks into the pet store, or program all the movies in the video store with a hypnotic virus, or—_something!_"

"Or he's, like...shopping?"

"For what, the human food he doesn't eat? ! How—"

Dib looked at Gretchen's nervous face, then trailed off, glaring down at his feet as they walked. Of course, she wasn't going to believe him. Nobody ever believed him. Not even Gretchen, and she was—well, the only real _friend_ that he had. At least, the only one his own age, who wasn't a member of the Eyeballs or something like that.

Gretchen eyed him nervously. Dib didn't look up from his angry downward gaze.

What was he doing here? He didn't like the mall, and in his current foul mood he felt annoyed to be in such a crowded place, surrounded by people who either hated him or at least thought he was a total idiot. He should be chasing Zim right now. The little monster was probably stocking up on supplies or something, getting ready for his next evil plan...Dib should be working on that, figuring out what it was the evil lizard was up to.

"...Dib?"

"_What?_" Dib didn't mean to growl as he spoke, but his current frustrations were evident in his voice.

"Don't be mad right now," Gretchen said, frowning even further. "We were having fun before...weren't we?"

Dib looked away from her, grimacing. For a moment he didn't answer.

What _was_ he doing here, he wondered again? "Hanging out at the mall" wasn't his idea of fun; fun for Dib meant researching chupacabras, hunting down Bigfoot or trying to hack his way into Area 51 again. He didn't like shopping—and heck, they weren't _even_ shopping, other than lunch they hadn't bought a single thing the whole time they had been there. All they had done was walk around aimlessly, talking about stupid stuff like skool or movies or something like that. This whole expedition was pointless, and worse, a distraction from much more important things that he _should_ have been doing right now.

And yet, bizarrely, Gretchen was right—this _was _the most real fun that Dib had had in a long time, or at least the most fun that didn't involve Zim writhing on the floor in agony. There was something so..._normal_ about his trips out with Gretchen—they were stupid, they were pointless, but they helped Dib understand _why _so many of his peers seemed to waste all of their time doing such stupid and pointless things. It was nice. It was relaxing. And Gretchen made good company, even if she didn't know a thing about weremoose or alien sorcery or any of that stuff.

"...I guess."

"Well, then, let's just forget about Zim. Please?"

As she spoke Gretchen entwined her arm in Dib's, smiling nervously at him. Anyone normal would have been able to interpret this as a clearly romantic gesture; Dib, however, just looked at her for a moment, then away again.

"...Alright."

Gretchen's smile widened. Then she went back to talking about her cat, something that happened in Math class the previous day, and a hundred other dumb things that really didn't matter.

Dib kept his eyes on his shoes, unable to really enjoy it anymore.

He could manage to ignore the fact that Zim was trying to wipe humanity out right now.

He just wished he could somehow get Gretchen to believe him about it.


	3. Sobs and Giggles

**Author's Notes:** My absolute deadline for this fic was that I would finish it by Valentine's Day, the anniversary of its start and the day I usually try to post some sort of Dib/Gretchen story. Instead, I've just got Part 3 done a few hours before the holiday is complete. ^^; I'll try to get the last two parts out as soon as possible—in the meantime I hope you enjoy this angsty little bit, set when Dib and Gretchen are sixteen and apparently finally dating.

* * *

Dib cried quietly, his sobs mingling with the beeping of the machines beside Gretchen's bed. The light flickered slightly as outside, a dull crash of thunder boomed in the night.

The lanky teen sniffled and wiped his eyes, replacing his glasses on his face. His shoulders were shaking slightly; he felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room, felt scared in a way he hadn't felt in a long, long time. Even he had to wonder at that; he regularly waged battle against Zim and all sorts of other preternatural threats, but it was relatively rare for him to fear for his life these days, and even the terror of total planetary annihilation wore fairly thin after five years of Zim's constant failures. But _this _was a fear he had never quite built up an immunity toward...

His eyes drifted down to the bed in front of him, and to the broken body laying motionlessly under the sheets. To closed eyes and a familiar, buck-toothed mouth breathing slowly from amidst the swathing of bandages over her face...

Dib's slight began to blur again. He moaned and threw his head over the back of the chair, staring up at the ceiling and fighting back tears.

No. No no no no no no _no..._

The door creaked open. Dib started, expecting a doctor or a nurse; he blinked when he saw the familiar face of his sister peeking into the room instead. He stared, confused.

"...Hey."

"Hey. What are you—_sniff_—doing here?" he asked slowly.

"You've been here for more than two days."

"So?"

Gaz grimaced, her first clear show of any sort of emotion, but if she had any sort of problem with the situation she wasn't going to let Dib trick her into admitting it.

"Besides, I had to drive somebody."

"Huh?" To Dib the fact that Gaz had no car and only a learner's permit was secondary to the question of who would possibly need her—or dare ask her—to help them. "Who?"

Gaz's head poked out of the room as she looked behind her. It stayed that way for a long moment—Dib could hear some quick, quiet verbal snipes between her and an unseen person—and finally Gaz just reached behind her and grabbed her guest his fake hair, tossing the child-sized figure into the room.

"_HEY! LET GO OF ME!_" Zim cried, no longer even concerned with keeping his voice down. Not that stealth would have helped him—the instant he was in sight Dib had jumped up, and it was only about another second before the alien found himself off his feet and pinned against the opposite wall, the hyuman's forearm pressed painfully against his neck.

"_AGH!_"

"YOU _BASTARD!_" Dib screamed, his face so close to Zim's that the alien could feel the human's burning spit-water spray onto his face. "You freaking _bastard!_"

"_RELEASE ME!_"

"How the hell do get off even showing your ugly face around here—"

"Put him down, Dib," Gaz ordered.

"I will start ripping your organs out _right here_ for what you did to her, you little—_GAH!_"

Gaz calmly reached out and grabbed Dib's elbow, squeezing with practiced force. Her brother let out a cry and dropped Zim, who fell unceremoniously onto his butt on the hospital floor. He scrambled to his feet and quickly slipped behind Gaz again, peeking out as Dib growled and Gaz rolled his eyes toward him.

"You see, scary Gaz-hyuman? ! You see? !"

"Move over, Gaz! That little monster is going to _pay_ for what he did to Gretchen!"

"He lies! Zim did nothing! _NOTHING!_"

"You're the one who _put _her in that hospital bed, you evil little _thing!_"

"Shut up, both of you! You're giving me a headache," Gaz grumbled, rubbing her forehead.

"Well, what are _you _doing here anyway? !" Gaz blinked in surprise as Dib rounded on her, his pale face turning an angry shade of pink pink. "I mean, what the hell are you thinking, bringing _him_ over here? ! Do you want to help him finish the job off or something, huh? !"

For a moment Gaz was too stunned to respond, and when the thought of destroying him _did_ cross her mind she decided that that would probably be counterproductive. "I brought Zim so he could tell you something," she growled.

"What? !"

Gaz reached over her shoulder and grabbed Zim by the arm, swinging him around to face her brother. Zim let out a cry, trying to break from her grip. "Say it," she commanded.

"Er—Zim has nothing to say!"

Like hell he didn't; he had done nothing _but _talk about the accident since the day it had happened. And by "talk about it" one of course meant that he would loudly and randomly start shouting that whatever had happened to Gretchen had not been his fault and that he didn't care about the ugly hyuman anyway, no matter how many times she had stopped her boyfriend from trying to kill him. That and mope around the skool so much that the emo kids were starting to get jealous, anyway.

"_Say it,_" Gaz commanded again, tightening her grip. Irkens, it should be noted, have bones about as breakable as a human's; Zim hissed in pain as his circulation was cut off, turning half of his arm a darker green than it was supposed to be and leaving ugly bruises.

"_Fine, fine!_ Dib-hyuman—I'm sorry I almost murdered your girl-mate. Happy? !"

Zim kept trying to pull his arm free from Gaz's grip, which only made him accidentally launch himself onto the floor when she suddenly released him. He stood again, wiping his hands on his red tunic and giving Dib a grimace that _might_ have been meant as some kind of forced, nervous smile. Dib, however, merely gave a twitch not unlike that of some serial killers. For a moment he couldn't speak; when he did his voice was low, cold and oddly terrifying.

"Oh, you're _sorry,_ Zim? You're _SORRY_ you almost killed her? ! Well, I guess that just makes everything **_OKAY THEN, DOESN'T IT? !_** I mean, who cares if you put the girl I love into a coma, as long as you feel _**freaking SORRY about it!**_**"**

He suddenly spun around and kicked the chair he had been sitting in, sending it banging into the wall with a loud _CRASH!_ Both Gaz and Zim winced; she pushed him away when he tried to hide behind her again, making him nearly crash into Dib as he spun around, his eyes so fiery it looked like the lenses of his glasses might melt.

Once again Zim faltered, but then, reminding himself that HE WAS ZIM!, he stood up as tall as he could and glared up at Dib, trying to ignore the fact that his eyes were roughly level to the hyuman's chest. "Well, it's not my fault!" he snapped. "She shouldn't have been in my base in the first place!"

"And it's so amazing that she managed to get in," Gaz said dryly. (To get Zim, Gaz had broken into Zim's base and distracted GIR by telling him to "look over there." It would be three hours before he stopped looking.)

"And besides, I was trying to kill _you,_ not _her,_" Zim sneered viciously.

"Oh, well, that makes it _much_ better, now, doesn't it? !"

"Well, if you had just gotten hit like you were supposed to then this wouldn't have happened!"

Dib suddenly grabbed Zim by the collar of his uniform, pulling him off his feet. "You little **_bastard!"_** he hissed, shaking him roughly. "You really have the nerve to blame m—it wasn't my—my—"

An indistinct gurgling came from Dib's throat, and Zim became very aware of how hard the hyuman's hand was shaking. Suddenly his shirt slipped from between Dib's four freakish hyuman fingers, making him fall to the ground (again). Dib was making an odd gasping sound like he couldn't quite breathe right. Zim watched hopefully; Dib suddenly dying would solve quite a few problems for him, after all.

Gaz's eyes narrowed as a dry sob escaped her brother's lips; she followed his gaze right to Gretchen, still laying quiet and broken on the bed. She sensed another torrent of emotions about to flood into the room, the kinds of emotions that she couldn't handle. She was sick of all this misery. Zim was moping around skool, Dib was moping around the hospital, Gaz had been alone at her house for days (not that she cared if Dib was there or not, in fact she liked it better when he wasn't—you're stupid, shut up). She looked away as if Dib's tears were something ugly and profane.

"I'm getting a soda. Come on, Zim."

Gaz grabbed Zim and pulled him out of the room with her as suddenly as she had thrown him in; the Irken let out another protest, but Gaz couldn't make it out much as another loud gasp escaped Dib's throat. By the time she closed the door he had stumbled over to where he had kicked the chair, falling into it; his legs simply would not carry his weight any longer, nor his neck his head, and all he could do was cover his glasses, quietly sobbing for what must have been the hundredth time in the last two days.

The whole scene played out in his head again—Zim cackling, Dib threatening, all normal, normal, and then suddenly _she_ was there...that she had thought to go looking for Dib at Zim's house didn't surprise him, though he assumed that the robot must have taken her down into the labs or something. He almost had to laugh, really—after all the times he had tried to show her something paranormal, tried to convince her that Zim was an alien, yet he had never taken her to that dangerous place, no, she had just stumbled down there all on her own...

Zim _had _been aiming for him, that much was obvious...but it's not like he didn't have experience dodging lasers. And then...Zim must have hit something...all the explosions, the whole room collapsing...and Gretchen...

Why hadn't that stupid laser just hit him? Heck, Zim's stuff had hit him before, and usually they didn't even do more than leave a really bad burn or something...why hadn't he managed to push Gretchen out of the way, keep her from being buried under all that rubble? Why had he had to freaking _go_ to Zim's house that day at all, did he _really_ expect that the little idiot was going to succeed this time? Why hadn't he ever just told Gretchen not to come looking for him there, he knew it was dangerous, why hadn't he been able to do _something_ to keep this from happening, what the hell kind of "defender of the Earth" was he if he couldn't even keep _one_ person safe, the _one _person who seemed to really care about him, and why did this have to happen to her of all people, what kind of sick twisted joke was it that he finally had _one_ good thing in his life and now it was being snatched away and for all his supposed brilliance and skill he couldn't think of anything to do to stop it? Why why why why _why_ was did this of all the horrible things in the world have to happen, it wasn't fair, Gretchen was just a good, kind, innocent person, a person he _loved,_ why couldn't he have stopped this, what was wrong with him? !

Dib felt like he was having a meltdown. This was all too much...stopping alien invaders was nothing compared to having to weasel vague answers out of doctors, try to explain what had happened to Gretchen's parents, deal with the possibility of losing this one person who meant so much to him...

Dib sobbed again, another dry, painful sob that wracked his whole body in pain.

For a moment he was sobbing so hard that he didn't even notice the way the machines' beeping had started to speed up.

He blinked blearily, wiping his eyes on his sleeve once again. When his vision was clear enough he suddenly realized that Gretchen was trying to lift her head up from the pillow.

"G—Gretchen? _Gretchen? !_"

He pulled himself out of his chair and knelt right beside her bed as she fell back, still too weak to move very well. "Be—be careful. Gretchen, are you awake, can you hear me? !" he asked frantically, taking her hand in his without even thinking.

Gretchen's eyes slowly opened; she blinked, her gaze unfocused and confused for a moment before they locked onto to Dib's familiar, scared, excited brown eyes. She tried to say something, but all that came out was a dull rasp. She cleared her throat and tried again, even as the tiny effort nearly knocked her back out from exhaustion.

"So—I guess Zim really _is_ an alien, huh?"

For a few seconds she wasn't even sure she had actually spoken, as Dib just stared down at her in utter confusion—and then the next thing she knew he was kissing her before his head fell onto her chest, his whole body shaking with a sound halfway between sobbing and the most manic, hysterical giggling that she had ever heard.


	4. The Gretchen

**Author's Notes:** Well, I have a tradition of submitting lots of fics on my birthday, and I want this story to finally be finished by Valentine's Day, so here's the penultimate chapter! Sorry it took almost a year to get this out, and that this little drabble is probably not enough to justify the wait. Enjoy anyway!

* * *

"Come on! Oh _man,_ I can't wait to show you this…"

Gretchen giggled. "Calm down, Dib," she said, making her way after him across the Membrane kitchen; even months after the accident she was still hobbling around on crutches. "You're acting like Keef or something."

Dib stopped at the garage door and waited for Gretchen to catch up, hopping up and down and impatiently tapping his foot. "Sorry. I'm just _really _excited about this. You're not gonna believe it—are you ready?"

Gretchen nodded, smiling sweetly—a very pretty smile, because whatever some kids said about her teeth still being too large, Dib thought that her braces had worked wonders. He returned her grin with a manic smirk, then reached behind him to throw open the door, gesturing dramatically into the garage.

"_TA-DA!_ What do you think?"

Gretchen hobbled closer and blinked as the giant object reached her eye. Dib kept grinning at her, waiting for a reaction.

"…What is it?"

It was Dib's turn to look confused now, his grin falling as he followed her gaze. "It's a spaceship!" he said, striding into the garage and standing beside the alien machine. Gretchen followed, peering up at it. "It's Irken. Well…mostly. It was Irken originally, but I've had to rebuild it like, ten or fifteen times by now so it has a lot of other stuff thrown in…but now I've _finally_ got everything working on it again, and I managed to integrate so much Vort tech and stuff my dad made that this thing should be able to do stuff that nothing in the Irken fleet could hope to accomplish." He grinned again, rubbing his hands together with an almost insane little giggle. "What do you think?"

"Um…?"

His face fell. "You don't like it?"

"…Well, I sort of thought you were going to show me a car, to be honest."

"Hyuh?"

Gretchen hobbled around the ship for a moment, examining it from different angles. She had to giggle when she came to the side of the craft—Dib had painted over the Irken insignia with the symbol of the Swollen Eyeball Network, replacing the central circle with a picture of the Earth.

"It looks different from Zim's ship," she observed.

"Yeah, it's a different model or something," Dib said, walking around to take his place beside her. "According to the onboard computer, this one's called a Spittle Runner. Zim's is called a Voot Cruiser. I…have no idea how they came up with those names," he added, as Gretchen gave him a weird look.

"You could ask Zim."

"I'm honestly not _that _interested in knowing," he muttered. He noticed a smudge on the ship's carefully-polished hull and bent down, trying to clean it with the hem of his trench coat.

Gretchen frowned but persisted, bending down over Dib's shoulder. "How's he been, by the way?"

"Who?"

"Zim."

"Him? Oh…fine, I guess." Dib sounded moody again, scrubbing the hull a bit harder than was necessary. "He's been quiet lately…part of the reason I've finally had enough time to finish working on the ship! He's probably planning something…"

"But I thought he wasn't trying to take over the world anymore?"

"Yeah, well, that's what _he _says…"

"And he hasn't been coming to skool lately."

"Yeah, well, why would he?" Dib asked, finishing his polishing job and climbing to his feet.

Gretchen opened her mouth to answer, then paused, realizing she didn't really have a response—it wasn't like Zim actually went to skool to get an education, and if those Tall guys had really fired him, the whole "infiltrate/find out about Earth life" thing probably didn't apply anymore either. But still…

"He seemed _really_ upset the last time we saw him."

Dib muttered something indistinct, checking the hull for anything else that needed cleaning.

"I'm sort of worried about him."

Another indistinct mutter.

"_Dib?_"

"Alright, _fine!_" Dib sighed, dropping his head wearily. "I'll…break into his house tomorrow and see how he's doing. Okay? !"

Gretchen smiled. Dib didn't seem to notice. Gretchen frowned, then ran her hand along the hill of the ship. It was beautifully polished—Gretchen thought that in absence of any aliens to thwart, Dib had been turning most of his obsessive-compulsive attention to making this project as good as possible. It looked kind of beautiful, really, gleaming in the dim radiance of the garage's hanging light bulb.

"It really _is_ a nice spaceship."

That was all it took to bring a smile back to her boyfriend's face. "Heh. Yeah."

They admired it for another moment before Gretchen had a thought. "Does it have a name?"

"Huh?"

"A name. You know, like a real ship. The…watery kind. Do spaceships get names too?"

"Hmm…well, I don't think the Irkens do that," Dib said, rubbing his chin. "And I never really thought to give it one either. Usually I just call it 'Tak's ship.'"

"_…Ugh._"

"What?"

Gretchen made a face. "The ship doesn't seem as nice if it's named after _her,_" she mumbled.

"Well, it's just—I mean, it's only descriptive—" Dib stammered for a minute, then cleared his throat. "But, uh, you're right. I mean, it's _my_ ship now anyway. I could name it—something else."

He gave her a sideways look, a small smile replacing the anxious look on his face.

And from that day forth, Dib's beloved Spittle Runner was rechristened _The Gretchen._


	5. Diamonds in the Sky

**Author's Notes:** We finally come to the last chapter, which is somewhat rewritten from the version that I had in my head. It's also pretty short, but I was rushed; hopefully it's still as sweet as I hoped, and that you all enjoy it. Happy Valentine's Day!

* * *

Hyperspace was like the best sunset ever, Gretchen thought. It was like every color in the universe mixed together, whizzing past their ship at a speed so fast that human science insisted it couldn't even exist. Between the auroral colors on the screen and the soft, steady hum of _The Gretchen_ beneath her feet, she couldn't think of a single thing that could be more relaxing. Or romantic.

She leaned over in her seat and rested her head on her boyfriend's shoulder, lacing her arm with his. "I love our flights together," she whispered.

"Yeah." Dib spared her only a short glance before turning his attention back to the monitors, but with a soft little smile that made his whole face light up even more than the rainbow lights. "Me too."

"...Do you think we'll still be able to go on trips like this? Even if you get into that university your dad wants?"

He spared her another look. "Gretchen, when the college board interviews me tomorrow, I'm going to tell them my career goal is exo-criminology. Even my dad's influence isn't going to get me into that school." He turned back, adding "Plus, they don't even _offer_ that subject. The only other thing I want to study is physics, and...well, I'm the first human to ever put together a hyperspace drive," he said, motioning to the colors flashing across the screen. "I'm not sure there's much they can teach me."

She lifted her head. "So you don't think you're going away to college at all?"

"Probably not. I mean, I already have a job with the Eyeballs. That's the only thing I want to do anyway. At least professionally."

He gave her a slight but significant look, then turned back around to the window again. Silently he reached into his pocket, checking something for the hundredth time that night. Then he leaned forward and pulled a lever, shifting _The Gretchen_ back into normal space.

"Here we are."

Gretchen sat up, leaning toward the window as the colors gave way to seemingly infinite blackness dotted with seemingly millions of stars. Her breath caught in her throat. Space was nothing new to her anymore, but she couldn't help it—seeing the stars from up here was nothing like seeing them in the city, or even from somewhere more isolated without all the light pollution. Dib had told her once that you could see a total of about 6,000 stars from Earth, but in space, they were _everywhere,_ above, beside and beneath you, more than you could hope to count. You weren't just gazing at the stars from up here—you were part of them, so that even millions of miles away it seemed like you could reach out and touch them.

"Wow," Gretchen breathed. Then, "Where are we?"

"Nowhere in particular. Way outside our solar system. I mean—I-I wanted this trip to be special, and, well—I wasn't sure if this was as good as seeing Jupiter again or something, but—I thought we might go somewhere...peaceful. Quiet." He gave her a nervous look. "Do you like it?" he asked meekly.

"It's beautiful," she whispered. "I've never seen so many stars before."

"Heh. Yeah." Her attention was on the universe around them, its soft white starlight illuminating her face. Dib took a deep breath, reaching into his pocket again. Silently, he began to slide out of his seat.

Gretchen sighed, leaning close enough to lay a hand on the screen. "They're so pretty," she said. "Like millions of diamonds."

Dib gave a nervous chuckle. "Heh. Funny you should mention that."

She turned, and jumped so hard she almost fell out of her seat. Dib had eased himself onto the floor, kneeling on one knee beside her. His pale, nervous face was even whiter in the starlight, and he was holding a small, velvet box in his hands.

"I, uh, actually brought you out here to ask you something," he said, opening the box and letting its content glitter rainbows in the soft light of the stars.


End file.
